Garden Grandeur

Published: 07/11/2017

The Mid-Atlantic States bloom with noted public botanical gardens that are at their most spectacular this time of year.

t’s an embarrassment of riches, but one for which we are most grateful. Here in the Mid-Atlantic States, botanical gardens exist in such profusion that a nature lover could visit a different garden every week spring through fall and still not have sampled them all. There are so many gardens in the Philadelphia area alone—more than 30 public gardens, arboreta and historic landscapes within 30 miles of the city— that a consortium of those gardens has taken to calling the region “America’s Garden Capital.”Of course, public gardens grow in abundance beyond that region, too. They vary from the government established U.S. Botanical Garden on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to the many former estates gifted to the public as botanical gardens, to community-developed gardens such as the work-in-progress West Virginia
Botanic Garden.